Lucetta Scaraffia: ‘We need to win women back’

Lucetta Scaraffia would like to see more women teaching at seminaries and presiding over several Vatican departments

The leading Catholic feminist says she is against women priests, but wants women to be given more responsibility in the Church

“It’s not possible to go on like this,” said Professor Lucetta Scaraffia in an interview with Agence France Press in 2012. “There is misogyny in the Church [and] women in the Church are angry!” Not surprisingly, her comments made headlines across the world and ignited a lively debate in the Church. And her criticisms didn’t end there: she also lambasted careerism among the clergy and argued that the sexual abuse crisis probably would not have happened if more women had been in positions of authority.

But despite her much-publicised comments, portraying her as a possible bra-burning Church feminist with little tolerance for opposing views, in person Scaraffia is softly spoken, thoughtful and good humoured. An associate professor of contemporary history at La Sapienza in Rome, she is one of the Church’s best known “Catholic feminists” and a regular contributor to L’Osservatore Romano, Corriere della Sera and Avvenire, the daily newspaper of Italy’s bishops.

We meet at her apartment in a Rome suburb, which she shares with her husband, the well-known Italian secularist intellectual Ernesto Galli della Loggia. Their residence is spacious but relatively modest and, as one would expect, the walls are lined with copious books on a wide variety of subjects.

I begin by asking about her concerns regarding women’s role in the Church. She answers by making an interesting observation, that until the 19th century, women were more respected in the Church than in society and that the emancipation of women even owes itself to Christianity. But now, she says, the situation has been “inverted”.

“Christianity is the only religion that has, from its origins, put forward an equal spirituality between men and women,” she explains. “This is the heritage of Christianity – and in particular the Catholic Church – in the past. But today, in society, we have a situation where women have become more advanced than the Church.”

She says the Church today “is too tired to accept this heritage” and to make itself part of this continued change. She says this is because women’s emancipation today “is measured along parameters that the Church cannot accept – that is, freedom for abortion” and what she calls “anti-conception”. This has led to a conflict, she says, between the emancipation of women as it currently stands and the Church. But she says she is in “absolute agreement” with other aspects of feminism, namely that the work of women “needs to be recognised” and that they should have “the same rights as men” and their role be valued.

A second hindrance, she says, concerns “gender” – the tendency to deny that which is specifically feminine, meaning maternity. The Church wants to value maternity, she says, and cites the 1988 apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem, but society generally does not. “So these are two very different positions,” she says.

Known for being fervently pro-life, Scaraffia says that the Church “is completely right” that the emancipation of women can be founded neither on abortion nor on gender. But in terms of in equality of opportunity, she says the Church must change. “Women should be able to carry out more roles within the Church,” she says. “I am against women priests but I think women should be given posts of responsibility in the Church.”

The head of a Vatican department does not, in theory, have to be a bishop or even a priest. So I ask whether she would like to see a woman leading, say, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. “Yes, absolutely, and more than one. Take a Mother Superior of an order,” she says, warming to a topic she has clearly often defended. “She has great experience, diplomatically, economically, and globally. I’ve known some of them. They’re extraordinary women. They could carry out this task very well indeed.”

Naturally, she is not prepared to say how soon that could happen, but says the likelihood is hindered by “the career wishes of priests”. They want to “make a career, become head of a dicastery and they become bishops, cardinals and so on”, she says. “This is the problem.”

She notes the many times both Benedict XVI and now Pope Francis warned clergy against careerism in the Church, and believes the presence of women in these positions would “disturb this struggle for power” because women “can’t make a career”. So does she think most male clergy want power? “No, of course there are very good priests, but some are like that.”

Scaraffia was heartened by Benedict XVI’s efforts to increase women’s roles in the Vatican, notably increasing their opportunities at L’Osservatore Romano. “By doing this, we can’t be ignored any more,” she says, adding that she believes the sight of more women working in the Vatican will bring about “a small cultural revolution”. The Vatican newspaper now produces a weekly supplement on women’s issues.

Scaraffia hopes Francis will continue where Benedict left off and values the new Pope’s emphasis on service rather than power. But she fears he will face “many internal obstacles”. She welcomes the Holy Father’s call for a deeper theology of women, and believes now is the time to “resume the debate begun by John Paul II, going beyond thoughts of reciprocity that he promoted, deepening the essential bond of maternity and the question of equality”.

On the question of misogyny in the Church, she doesn’t think it is widespread and says many priests appreciate femininity. “I don’t think women in the Church are necessarily victims of misogynists, but the organisation can be misogynistic. The exclusion of women from the organisation is what is misogynistic, from the highest ranks of the Church.” One way to combat this, she believes, would be to have women teaching in the seminaries because priests would be used to seeing members of the opposite sex in posts “more superior to them”. “Instead, young people going to seminary see women only as those who are preparing food or cleaning. This is very important – it’s very important to change this attitude to women.”

Her past assertion that more women in positions of authority might have prevented in the clerical sex abuse crisis raised eyebrows. When I ask her about it, she prefaces her answer by stressing that the abuse of minors has also taken place in the houses of religious women. But she adds: “I think that the attitudes of women are always more geared to defending children, so the presence of women, to a greater or lesser extent, serves to prevent sexual abuse.”

We turn to the problem of some women religious, most notably the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. A canonically approved body to support religious nuns and Sisters in the United States, the group has recently been investigated by the Vatican over doctrinal concerns. Does she agree that too little discipline and separation from tradition was a cause? “It’s a problem,” she answers. “Often in the Church the only women that are heard are those who protest the loudest, but they are on the margins of the Church. These Sisters have written things greatly opposed to the Church’s moral teaching. In this way, the Vatican thinks of women as a danger, because either they don’t stay silent, or they protest very loudly.”

But she stresses there are many women who are obedient to the Church and in agreement with it. “They could say things, but they are not listened to, and yet those women religious who protest loudly eclipse the voices of those that protest less,” she says.

Overall, Scaraffia says, there is “much to do” to improve the lives of women in the Church. The way forward, she proposes, “should include a historical reflection on the role that women have played in the history of the Church, which tends to be ignored or underestimated a great deal”.

Frequently, the subject of credibility comes up in our conversation. She says that the fear of giving women more leadership positions damages the Church “because when the Church is increasingly different to modern society, she becomes less
credible”.

“Many things that the Church says on the moral level would be much more credible if they were said by women in important positions,” she says. “As they are not, it seems there’s a struggle, men against women, which isn’t the case. On the contrary, I think the Church at this moment defends women, for example from exploitation, such as artificial insemination. But the fact that these things are said always by men doesn’t convince others.”

This article first appeared in the print edition of the Catholic Herald dated 11/10/13

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mikethelionheart

‘We need to win women back’

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We need to win men back.

Cestius

There is a lot of truth in that. A healthy church congregation is 50% male and 50% female, one of the early signs of decline is the disappearance of the men.

bob

no disrespect intended but in my parish which is 70% female, the secretary is a woman, the catechists are women and the financial, even the choir is mostly women. there seems to be the opposite problem in my parish here in the uk. where have the good men gone?

bob

@Cestius i see a decline already of native british men…..

Patrick J. Gray

As for the lack of men, the flat language, intellectual banality and patronizing manner of the new ‘Mass’ and ‘Sacraments’, to say nothing of the sacrilegiousness of the former and the likely invalidity of many of the latter (the New Mass is not invalid. It is valid; and its very
validity is the reason it is so reprehensible. It is turning the Mass from a sacrifice offered to God into a jolly meal for men.), encourage neither devotion nor respect.

agent.provocateur

So it has been confirmed…The Catholic Herald is Tablet 2 now….I don’t understand why a “Catholic” newspaper would publish an interview with a radical feminist?? Feminism and Catholicism can NOT be reconciled, because feminism in its essence is rebellion against the natural order of things. Also, since when the Catholic Church accepts the gender theory? There is only male and female sex. At least one thing is clear – the deep theology on women will have to be produced by men…..

MrsDBliss

She’s against gender theory it says and agrees with all the teachings of the Church; including the male priesthood.
I’m certainly not a feminist, but I like her statements that women religious have the capacity to take on leadership roles – they do.

James M

“The leading Catholic feminist says she is against women priests, but wants women to be given more responsibility in the Church”

## For that position to be sustainable, it – just like any other – needs a solid intellectual foundation. So – what is that foundation ? If her position doesn’t have one, it will crumble.

What anyone might want (or, even worse, “demand”) is not the point – the question is, what does God want ? A will that is not in accord with the Will of God is not as it should be. And there is no point in having women priests in the CC, if they are going to be Anglican in theology – Catholic priests are ordained to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass; Anglican clergy are not. Nor is a priest a social worker in vestments. The revised rite of ordination is only a Catholic rite, and is therefore only orthodox, if it at least takes as true the traditional teaching regarding the sacred priesthood – which includes the dogma that a priest is ordained to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass. “Women priests” who do not hold this dogma but reject it & do so knowingly & deliberately, cannot be priests: only Catholic priests can be priests, because the Catholic priesthood is the only legitimate priesthood there is, as it is the Priesthood of Christ Himself.

Feminism is worldly in its assumptions – feminists keep “demanding” things: as though the Grace of God were something to which man can have a right. The grace of ordination is just that: a grace – IOW, not something to be “demanded” by uppity and sinful human beings. STM the wholly gratuitous and unmanipulable & unearnable grace of ordination to the Priesthood of Christ may have been overlooked by both sides. Since ordination is a grace, there cannot be any right to be ordained. “Christian feminism” is an oxymoron; feminism & Christianity co-exist in uneasy instability – in the Christian feminist, one or the other must have the upper hand.

James M

“Know your enemy” is good advice and good practice – and sometimes one can learn from them.

James M

That’s like saying water is wet – it’s extremely obvious that they do, and therefore not something anyone with half a brain cell needs telling.

BTW – “leadership” is the wrong category; it is secular, not Catholic and Christians. If we think like the world, & not as the Catholic Christians God has made us, the Church of God will become no more than an extension of the world; which is the reverse of what Christ said to His Disciples:

“18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Erm? Like being the venerable Mother Superior Duchesne not just Yo! sista Phil .. No, of course not, that genuine authority is not the object intended; the ‘feminist’ (sic) seeks to make remodelled men of all women – rather than allowing the real female to speak as a woman with her absolutely incontrovertible power, even in weakness.

PS: I place no personal Nihil Obstat on the site used, nor do I suggest it could have an Imprimatur, but it offers the image of indomitable authority I seek to witness.

(X)MCCLXIII

We need to win men back,

bonaventure

One correction: the Eastern Orthodox orders (diaconate, presbyterate, and episcopacy) are also legitimate, as per the most orthodox Catholic doctrine.

And notice that, today — after centuries of oppression first by Islamist and then by communists — the Eastern Orthodox have taken a leadership role in speaking against the scared cows of contemporary liberalism.

JR, Sydney

Fine if you assume that to be a feminist one has to be female. Feminism presupposes that we are all equal (including before God)It is not possible to be a Christian without being a feminist.

Rhoslyn Thomas

Go to any order of traditional nuns and you’ll see strong women with a huge role in the Church. We need more nuns and erm, no feminists.

Margaret

As a woman I can testify to the endless attacks; envy, calumny, above all, wherever I have been; at school, at work ( I have seen and/or worked at 30 various places), in society in general(with a few excellent exceptions) and here it comes; the church is NOT DIFFERENT!
I wish with all my heart that I could say that envy and competition from the part of women does not constitute a problem in the church, but it would be a big fat lie.
The mere thought of more “women power” in the church scares me more than anything.
Women´s envy and vicious calumny, their endless gossiping, mostly about anyone they in any way feel inferior to, is indeed a shameful and neglected issue.
And No matter how intelligent and successful Scaraffia is portrayed, just as her “faithfulness” to the church; my instinct just tells me that I AM NOT AT ALL REASSURED when it comes down to “gender issues”; most academics, many of whom are very well known, whatever their position is, are often wearing “fidelity” as a masque, which they throw off as sonn as they have achieved the power they are yearning for.
Don´t fool yourselves, women are AT LEAST as power hungry as men. And often 100 % more manipulative.
That is why they have managed to scare away men from the church, as well as in many other parts of society.
According to sociologists and psychologists the huge problem in western society is not the absence of women power but the shortage of MEN, who dare getting married, having a family , stay in relations.
I always think of Salome who asked her mother for the head of John the Baptist.
There is at least as much evil in women as in men.
Finally: I have always had and have very good relations with some women friends over the years. But I repeat: women can be terrible obstacles in working places and schools(girls), attacking each other and others.
I am not vengeful, not hateful, just realistic.
This will anger some, but then you should ask yourself wy you feel so provoked.
Maybe you recognize yourself in the description above?